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Epic variable star 54 EP

Atik

RA 56.0797° · Dec 32.2882° · star

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Score breakdown

· 9 badges
54 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 54

24 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B1III — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.
  • It changes. This star does not hold still: its brightness rises and falls on a rhythm of hours, days or years, either pulsing in size or being eclipsed by a companion.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 3.8 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Perseus.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

absmag
-3.841
bv
0.022
constellation
Per
dist ly
1120.811
luminosity
2995.0219
mag
3.84
name
Atik
named
yes
spect
B1III
var amplitude
0.04
var designation
Omi
var max
3.822
var min
3.862

About Atik

Atik is an epic variable star. It lies about 1,120.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Per, shines at apparent magnitude 3.84 and has spectral type B1III.

Its spectrum reads B1III — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for Atik in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 3.84, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Atik is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why Atik is an epic variable star

Atik scores 54 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 24 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 9 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star, Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) and Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.